Consumer Demographics and Food Shopping Motives in Ghanaian Supermarkets: A Case Study of Accra and Kumasi

Project summary

The BSU Master thesis explores demographic and food shopping motives of Ghanaian supermarket consumers in two of the major Ghanaian cities- Accra and Kumasi. It used a survey instrument to collect 300 valid responses from shoppers in the case cities. And analysis of the demographic distribution gives a picture of young and highly educated consumers with varied levels of income. A Principal Component analysis of shopping motives yielded four (4) main typology of shoppers: Curious Economic Shopper (22.84%); Quality and Safety shopper (16.03%); Aesthetic Shopper (16.03%) and Social Shopper (7.26%). These shopper typologies cut across various Hedonic and Utilitarian shopper motives in the literature. Again shopper motives were found to be more fluid than rigid because the four motives sometimes have underlying similarities. The identified shopper motives were used as summated scale and their variation with demographic factors explored. A Post Hoc test showed varied degrees of significant differences between various demographic variables and shopping motives. Income levels were found to have no significant impact on shopper motives for buying food products from the supermarket. Shoppers’ economic motives differ based on age, with significant difference between young consumers and older consumers. A significant was also found between educational and the Social Motives for shopping. The results were then discussed and recommendations made based on the findings.